• Learning a Language : Our Mission

    Every organization needs to have a mission.  This is the purpose, the overriding goal behind everything that we do.  We here at LearnALanguage.com had a very long, intense discussion over what our mission would be.  We think that you’ll be excited about this: Our Mission: To make language-learning a convenient and social habit through modern technology.  Pretty simple, right?  Let’s break it down together, just to see exactly why we’re here and what we’re doing. Language-learning: We operate based on the assumption that everyone is interested in learning a second, third or fourth language (or ought to be so).  The benefits are enormous and let’s face it – no one will ever regret learning another language.  We all have our own reasons, and that’s good enough for us. Convenient: We know that …

  • Funny Communication Fails

    FAIL The word “fail” is one of the most popular search words in Google and YouTube.  For some reason, human beings find enjoyment in watching the slip-ups and trip-ups of their fellow earth-dwellers.  America’s Funniest Home Videos, a TV show based solely on people falling over, is one of the most popular, family-centered TV shows of all time.  There’s nothing wrong with that (mostly), but here is the question: How do you make sure that you are the one watching these ‘fails’, not the one performing? I can’t tell you how to ride a bike properly, or how NOT to jump into a swimming pool, but I can give you some help with the language blunders that happen so often.  We’ve all heard the horror stories, and some of us …

  • Learning a Second Language….. and a Third….. and a Fourth…..

    Do you know who Ioannis Ikonomou is?  I didn’t either – that is, until I ran across an article about one of the smartest living human beings.  Most of us would consider speaking a second language as a great feat.  A third language? Incredible.  A fourth language?  Impossible.  Not Ioannis Ikonomou.  This 46-year old Greece-born, world-citizen “feels comfortable” speaking and communicating in 32 languages.  That’s not a typo – 32 (as in thirty-two). As a native Grecian, his mother-tongue is Greek.  He began learning English when he was 6 years old.  After English came German…  Then Russian…  Italian…  Turkish…  Arabic…  And so the story goes.  Ioannis is now employed as the only in-house translator for the European Commission of the United Nations.  He spends about half the year in Beijing, China as …

  • Habit Psychology

    We’ve all heard it before: 21 days to make a habit.  21 days.  It sounds easy.  It sounds short.  It sounds simple. But is it? 21 Days.  3 Weeks.  504 Hours.  30,240 Minutes.  1,814,400 Seconds. It turns out that 21 days really is a long time, but we can get around that.  Believe it or not, we are constantly going through the full 21 day-cycle to start new habits – The only problem is that these habits aren’t always the ones that we want to be starting.  It seems that bad habits are easy to start and easy to feed, but the good habits are hard to grow (just like flowers & vegetables take a herculean effort and grandmotherly patience, but weeds grow for free…). After scouring the web for legitimate advice on …